January 15

Snow!!! A nice coating of the white stuff fell last night and is coming down still. I hope to enjoy it before it turns into a slushy mess.

Breakfast:

1 soft boiled egg
green pepper slices and tapenade
I was the one stealing chicken apple sausage from my youngest this morning-ha!
tea

Lunch:

Chili
Carrots and tapenade

After taking advantage of our 1 inch of snow (sledding, snowball fight, snowman building, shoveling and plowing with a plastic snowplow) I nuked a bowl of chili from last night. Chili is better the day after since the spices have had a chance to really co-mingle.

Snack:

Carrots and cucumber with tapenade
Coconut flakes and 5 pecans, chopped up
More chili
Half an apple with walnut butter
1 hard boiled egg

I ate breakfast and lunch pretty early so was quite hungry by mid-afternoon.

Dinner:

Whole roasted chicken
Roasted winter vegetables

This is my favorite recipe for roasting a chicken. It's simple, straight forward and hasn't failed me yet.

Recipe (paraphrased):

1 2-3 pound whole chicken
Kosher salt
pepper

Dry the bird, inside and out. Salt and pepper inside then truss bird. Rain salt over outside. It makes for a delicious, crispy skin once cooked. Place in roasting pan that is lined with sweet potato slices or carrot slices to keep drippings from smoking. Roast 50-60 minutes at 450 degrees. Let rest 15 minutes then carve up and serve. Goes well with butter and mustard. The potatoes at the bottom the pan were delicious, especially the ones around the edges that were gooey and crispy but soft in the center.

There are great videos on youtube for trussing and carving a chicken.

Roasted winter vegetables:

Tonight we chopped up one of each of the following:
yam
sweet potato
parsnip
rugabega
celery root
turnip
onion
beet (yes, just one baby beet. They were too hard to peel.)

Mix together with olive oil and some herbs if you have them. Cook along side chicken, giving a shake 1-2 times.

Two weeks in and I can say I have lost one more pound and am looking quite ripped. I am amazed at how quickly the visible changes occur. Hip is sore, but I think this is an injury that is far beyond just inflammation due to omega-6s. Muscle up is coming along and I have posted everyday. Half way there! I am beginning to really want a cup of coffee, just for the taste. But I can make it another two weeks, no problem.

Salmon Filet with Roasted Root Veggies

After much talking with fellow blogger Nicole, I decided to roast some veggies for dinner tonight.

Ingredients:

Vegetables
1 small butternut squash seeded and cut into pieces
2 small turnips cut into pieces
2 parsnips cut into pieces
1 sweet potato cut into pieces
1 yellow onion
1 Head of garlic
Olive Oil
Salt and Pepper to taste

1 6 ounce salmon filet

Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
I cut up the butternut, turnips, parsnips, sweet potato and onion and put them into a big bowl.  I added about 3 tbsp of olive oil and some salt and pepper and tossed it to coat all the veggies.  I then wiped two baking dishes with oil and dumped the veggies in equally. I pulled apart all the cloves of the garlic and peeled them.  These I set aside for later.

I put the veggies into the oven for about an hour.  After the first 30 minutes, I added the garlic cloves.  Stir the veggies every 20 minutes or so.

For the salmon, I put a little salt and pepper on the filet.  In a small pan heat olive oil.  Cook the fish on each side for 3 or 4 minutes.  Serve.

This made A LOT of veggies which I saved for future meals.  Veggies could easily serve 4-6 people.

Can of tuna...oh, the possibilities.

At 5:00 I started thinking about what to make for dinner. We had a refrigerator full of veggies from the farmers' market and a trip to Costco, but not much in the way of protein. Deep in the pantry cupboard were the trusty cans of tuna for a night like tonight.

Here goes.

Ingredients:
2 cans of tuna
hard boiled eggs
baby beet greens (or any other green)
beets
carrots
onions or shallots
zucchini

Dressing:
6T EVOO
1.5T red wine vinegar
fresh herbs-thyme, sage, rosemary

I chopped the veggies to about the same size then roasted them at 425 for about 45 minutes (finished the beets and carrots at 450 for about 10 minutes because we were hungry and impatient).

While they were roasting I put the baby beet greens in a bowl, topped with the tuna and diced hard boiled eggs then mixed up the dressing. Any vinegarette will do, so play with herbs, garlic, lemon juice, different oils.
Once the veggies were fork tender I pulled them out of the oven and topped the salad with them. The carrots looked tye-dye from the beets, which I found pretty. Everything got a splash of the salad dressing then Bon Appetit!

Options: Any vegetable that roasts up nicely works for this salad; tomatoes, asparagus, green beans, squash. I like it best at room temperature so it is good to plan ahead a little more than an hour before dinner. Toasted nuts would also go well with this. Grilled chicken or any other protein works, too. This is a really versatile dish and so tasty!

Non-Paleo options: sprinkle some goat cheese on top.